The Northern heavy cavalry was a sight to behold. Hundreds of riders, their armor and the barding on their mounts catching the midday sun, slowly formed into a massive steel wedge. Behind them, a thousand more elite riders waited for the signal.
"CHARGE!"
Jon Umber's roar could have been heard back in Winterfell. He lowered his lance, decorated with the Stark wolf and spurred his warhorse to a breakneck gallop. As the tip of the wedge, he slammed into the chaotic Lannister front lines.
He didn't even need to aim. The Lannister conscripts were a mess of panic and confusion; they basically walked into the hooves. Spears impaled them, horses trampled them, and the riders who lost their lances simply drew longswords and started harvesting souls.
Jon broke through the first layer of ragtag troops like they were made of wet paper, but he didn't hit the "hedgehog" pike formation Ser Kevan was desperately trying to set up.
"LOOSE!" a Lannister officer screamed.
Thousands of arrows hissed into the sky, a black cloud of hail.
"SLOW DOWN!" Jon Umber yelled, signaling his men. "TURN!"
The cavalry executed a perfect semi-circle, swerving just out of range of the arrow rain and circling back to trample the routing survivors again. They were purely there to break the formation and distract the big guns.
Meanwhile, Gregor Clegane, the Mountain was doing what he did best: being a monster. He led a thousand irregular riders toward the forest on the right, slamming into the Northern light cavalry pouring out of the trees. He wasn't trying to be a genius; he was just trying to kill as many people as possible.
On the eastern plains, the ground began to shake. A golden-red torrent of two thousand elite Lannister riders, led by Adam Marbrand, surged forward. Marbrand was a pro. He saw the Northern horse-archers and knew exactly what to do: chase them down, clear the slope, and buy Kevan's infantry time to breathe.
"ATTACK!" Marbrand roared, leveling his spear.
"RETREAT!" Earl Glover yelled from the other side. His horse-archers didn't hesitate; they turned tail and bolted toward the high southwest slopes.
Marbrand bit the bait. He chased them hard, his shield catching a few stray arrows, his mind set on a clean wipe. But as he crossed the three-hundred-meter mark, his world fell apart.
The "flat" grassland had been turned into a minefield. Following my instructions, my dad's men had spent the night digging "rabbit holes" two feet long, a foot deep, and perfectly camouflaged with weeds.
Horses running at forty miles an hour don't handle holes well.
CRACK. THUD. CRUNCH.
Dozens of Lannister horses snapped their legs instantly, sending armored riders flying into the dirt, where they were trampled by the guys behind them. While they were stumbling, the "hidden" ballistas on the ridge opened up.
Heavy iron bolts, the size of fence posts, hissed through the air. They didn't just kill riders; they pinned man and horse to the ground in a single shot.
My dad, Lord Rickard, watched from the ridge. He'd never seen a tactic so "dishonorable," but man, was it effective. He waited for the Lannister momentum to die in the pits before leading the Karstark counter-charge.
In the center of the chaos, I found my target.
The Mountain had been de-horsed. A Northern rider had managed to put a spear into his mount's neck, and the massive beast had gone down, thrashing. Gregor stood up, uninjured and vibrating with a terrifying aura of death. He'd already butchered three men who tried to take him on foot.
I signaled Abel and the squad. "He's mine. Keep his buddies off me."
Abel lunged forward, his [Ice Warrior] strength allowing him to punch through a Lannister guard's breastplate with a spear. Matthew and Martin, the brothers, wove through the melee like a whirlwind. But war has a price. Martin took a sword to the neck, a gruesome, spraying wound that sent him to the grass.
I didn't have time to mourn. I was staring at the Mountain. He was over seven feet tall, holding a massive shield and a two-handed greatsword that looked like a slab of iron.
I spurred my horse into a charge. As I got close, I felt the Soul Power drain as I activated my newest skill.
[Enchanted Blade: Rainbow Elements active.]
The head of my battle-axe began to shimmer with a terrifying, iridescent glow. Gregor's eyes widened behind his visor. He actually hesitated, probably wondering if he was hallucinating from the milk of the poppy.
I swung.
Gregor raised his shield, but the magical blade didn't care about wood or steel. It bit through the shield's rim and sliced into his side, melting through his plate and mail like a hot knife through butter. I felt it hit the lung.
The Mountain let out a guttural roar and swung his greatsword in a blind, furious arc.
THUD.
The blow shattered my Magic Armor force field instantly and slammed into my shield. It felt like being hit by a freight train. I was launched off my horse, landing hard on the grass. My back felt like it was on fire, but the system kept me moving.
I scrambled up, tossed my ruined shield aside, and grabbed my axe with both hands.
Gregor was kneeling on one knee, gasping for air through a punctured lung. He tried to sweep his sword behind him, but I was faster. I stepped inside his guard and brought the axe down on his lower leg.
CRUNCH.
The bone snapped. The Giant fell to both knees. He couldn't even lift his sword anymore. I stood behind him, raised my glowing axe high, and put everything I had into the final swing.
The enchanted blade sliced through the steel gorget and the thick neck underneath in one clean motion. The Mountain's head, nearly twice the size of a normal man's rolled into the dirt.
I stood there, breathing hard, and picked up the head by the hair.
"One debt paid," I muttered.
The retreat horn sounded.
Robb wasn't a fool. He had six thousand riders, and Tywin still had twenty thousand vets. We'd done what we came to do: we'd bloodied their nose, trapped their elite cavalry, and killed their most feared knight.
As I rode back toward the Golden Tooth, Abel led my horse over. Matthew was carrying his brother's body, his face a mask of grief. McKen and Paine had loaded the rest of the Mountain's corpse onto a spare horse. We were bringing the evidence home.
Tywin watched us leave from the hill. He didn't pursue. He knew the Golden Tooth was gone, Lannisport was a bluff, and he was now trapped in a hostile valley with twenty thousand men and no back door.
The Old Lion finally looked old.